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Winding Down

What do you do to wind down? Maybe at the end of a long day or a long week or even a long project, you have something that helps you put that chapter behind, rest up and recharge for what comes next. So what helps you wind down when you need to do so?

Today, what helped me was to basically ignore my to-do list for most of the day. I’ve grown to somewhat resent my unending to-do list that sits on one shoulder and whispers in my ear constantly including evenings and weekends. So today I spent the majority of the day doing things I hadn’t planned that served as a good diversion and helped me feel like I was in control of my day rather than a list of tasks controlling me.

I did the following out-of-the-ordinary (for me) activities:

Browsed a Best Buy store looking over tablets in anticipation of getting one in the next few months;

Roamed a mall and serendipitously happened to be there at the same time as my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter, so we ate lunch together (she gave me a tiny sliver of french fry which she dipped in ketchup and fed me, had me carry her through the mall, and gave me a nice hug before we parted – the day could have ended there and been just fine);

Did some online research about the tablets that interested me in the store to learn more and to help refine my possible choices;

Took a long afternoon nap with my dog in my man cave with lights out and the sounds of silence;

Took a longer than normal walk with my dog at a nearby park that was blissfully empty of many other people for a change;

Watched a little football;

Ate two good, healthy meals (one a day is normal for me).

I still did a few usual things like making my online social media rounds, email checks, a few minutes of work, playing Frisbee with the dog, making sure I got at least 10,000 steps in (actually more than 14,000 today) and duplicating some CDs to give away at church. But what I didn’t do was anything at all on my to-do list except for making the CDs which only took about 30 minutes.

This was a long, tiring week for me at work. It was more frustrating than usual in one aspect. I needed to wind down. Tomorrow may be another day of largely ignoring the to-do list.

As I look forward to setting goals for 2014, some different priorities will influence how I plan my days next year compared to what has driven me this year. I’ll write more about that at the end of the year, but I look forward to taking winding down to a new level for me not too many weeks from now. I’m excited about it.

So I’ll ask the question again: What do you do to wind down at the end of a day, a week, a project, assignment, or even a career?